Citizen Attributions of Blame in Third-Party Governance

• Published in: Public administration review Vol. 76; no. 1; pp. 96 - 108
• Main Authors: Marvel, John D., Girth, Amanda M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.01.2016; American Society for Public Administration
• Subjects: Accountability; Attribution; Blame; Citizens; Consumer attitudes; Governance; Government agencies; Political parties; Psychological aspects; Public administration; Quality of service; Studies; SYMPOSIUM: TOWARDS AN EXPERIMENTAL PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION; Third party; United States > US
• ISSN: 0033-3352; 1540-6210
• DOI: 10.1111/puar.12474

The authors use a survey experiment to examine how structural differences in governance arrangements affect citizens' notions of who is culpable for poor service quality. More specifically, two questions are investigated: (1) When things go wrong, do citizens attribute more blame to political actors if the provider of government services is a public agency or a private contractor? (2) Does the length of the accountability chain linking political actors to service providers influence citizens' attributions of blame? The authors hypothesize that provider sector and accountability chain length affect citizens' perceptions of political actors' control over service delivery, which, in turn, inform citizens' attributions of blame. Mixed support is found for this theory.